No More Learning

what then? granted! --we are fallen creatures;
Look to your Bible, Paget! we are fallen.

PAGET. I am but of the laity, my Lord Bishop,
And may not read your Bible, yet I found
One day, a wholesome scripture, 'Little children,
Love one another. '

GARDINER. Did you find a scripture,
'I come not to bring peace but a sword'? The sword
Is in her Grace's hand to smite with. Paget,
You stand up here to fight for heresy,
You are more than guess'd at as a heretic,
And on the steep-up track of the true faith
Your lapses are far seen.

PAGET. The faultless Gardiner!

MARY. You brawl beyond the question; speak, Lord Legate!

POLE.
Indeed, I cannot follow with your Grace:
Rather would say--the shepherd doth not kill
The sheep that wander from his flock, but sends
His careful dog to bring them to the fold.
Look to the Netherlands, wherein have been
Such holocausts of heresy! to what end?
For yet the faith is not established there.

GARDINER. The end's not come.

POLE. No--nor this way will come,
Seeing there lie two ways to every end,
A better and a worse--the worse is here
To persecute, because to persecute
Makes a faith hated, and is furthermore
No perfect witness of a perfect faith
In him who persecutes: when men are tost
On tides of strange opinion, and not sure
Of their own selves, they are wroth with their own selves,
And thence with others; then, who lights the faggot?
Not the full faith, no, but the lurking doubt.
Old Rome, that first made martyrs in the Church,
Trembled for her own gods, for these were trembling--
But when did our Rome tremble?

PAGET. Did she not
In Henry's time and Edward's?

POLE. What, my Lord!
The Church on Peter's rock? never!